A Star is Born!

I met, through our cochlear implant on-line parent group, a super dad from Florida who told me how much his toddler daughter loves singing and hearing her voice with a microphone and amp. He sent me a video of his daughter belting out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I was amazed at how proficient she was with the microphone and how she sang with so much feeling. I have since been eager to get a microphone and amp set up in the house as I can see how it could be used as a means to improve Ava's articulation. My husband is a musician and has this equipment, but he uses it quite frequently for his gigs and his equipment is so heavy and difficult to move in and out of the house. Well today, Ava and sister Lauren's awesome Godmother Linda, picked up this fantastic amp and microphone set from Pottery Barn (she couldn't resist the deal - it was marked down as a doorcrasher special from $200 to $20!). It is the real deal, not a children's plastic toy type. You can even hook up your iPod to it to play sing-a-long music. The girls went nuts, especially Ava. I highly recommend getting this for your CI kids, especially little ones learning to talk. Kids love to hear their own voices and love to perform. And of course, the obvious benefits are it's a fun way to develop and enhance language! Here's a sample of Ava's rendition of "Wheels on the Bus". We made her sit down as she was jumping and dancing around so much she kept yanking the microphone cable out of the amp. Your next American Idol maybe?

Making Muffins

I'm enjoying my time at home with Ava very much since all her older siblings are in full time school. It gives us oh so much one on one time together...such precious time. Especially precious is this time because she starts preschool this September. While I'm very excited for her to start school, I also am dreading it. She is my baby and I would like to keep her home with me forever. She is our seventh child of this blended family so I know all to well just how quickly they grow up once they start school. Ava and I do everything together. Unloading the dishwasher, grocery shopping and sorting laundry is actually quite fun with my little sidekick. She loves to sort things into categories be it cutlery and dishware, daddy's socks v. Lauren's jammies. We are starting to work on sorting food; fruits v. vegetables.

Ava and I had our first ever baking session together. She learned about mixing, beating, pouring, stirring, teaspoons and measuring cups. She had so much fun!

Putting in the muffin cups

Adding the mix

Mix it up

Spooning the batter

Chocolate chips and blueberries

Proudly carrying her creation to the oven!

Turning on the light to watch!

Blowing to cool them down

Devouring her muffin!

Our little catholic girl has taught herself to sign the cross at grace. We love it!

Going to "School"

An important step in a toddler's development is for them to spend time with their peers in a social setting. I feel it is especially important for a child with cochlear implants to do this, so they can pick up on social cues and subtle nuances in language from their peers. Ava is in a home full of much older siblings and us, her parents. While she is drawing phenomenal amount of language from us all, I believe it is equally important in her overall language development, to spend time with other 2 year olds.

I am going to be honest here. Part of me has a fear that Ava may experience rejection by her peers. I grew up with hearing aids. I did not experience rejection myself (except for one smart-assed boy in grade 7 who made a couple smart-assed comments about my hearing aid, which I just let roll off, although it did sting at the time). Ava's older sister Lauren, who is 6, wears hearing aids. So far, knock on wood, she hasn't had any problem with her peers. Lauren's teacher of the deaf played a role in this, I'm sure. She had the clever idea to have Lauren make a book complete with Lauren's own illustrations of all the parts and functions of her hearing aids and Lauren read this to her class and to the principal. Right from the get-go, Lauren's peers were made aware of Lauren's hearing aids, why she got a sound-field and then an FM system and how they need to face Lauren when they talk to her. She has a ton of friends and frankly, they don't even think about her hearing aids or remember that she has them. I'm hoping that this will be the same with Ava too. But, who has really seen implants before? Don't get me wrong. I am eternally grateful for the technology. But I feel I have to do everything in my power so that Ava gets off to a good start socially, with her peers. I want the world to see just what a lovely vivacious full of energy and zest little girl Ava is. And the sooner, the better. In a group setting, Ava can learn things like turn-taking, sharing, empathy and conflict resolution. Last September, I enrolled Ava in a mom/tot group. The group meets for two hours every Wednesday in a school-like setting and follows a school-like routine. Ava LOVES it. I mean absolutely its her favourite place in the world to go to.

First, it's FREE PLAY at the many different stations, such as painting, colouring, puzzles, dress-up, toys, play-dough, potato head, books, etc.

Then, we do a craft. Here, we decorated our own gingerbread men and of course devoured them.

Then, its SNACK TIME!

Then we go upstairs to the big GYM to play with bouncy balls and "What Time is it Mr. Wolf?"

And then, we go back downstairs to pick out an INSTRUMENT for our marching band

Next, we have CIRCLE TIME. We sing songs and have a story.

Then we line up and wait for our name to be called. "Ava be nimble, Ava be quick, Ava jump over the candle stick."

Of course, our day would not be complete without a gazillion HUGS from "teacher" Jessica

Suitable for all ages

Ava really, I mean REALLY loves Dora the Explorer. I have to admit, we are a big tv family. Not that we watch a ton of it, in fact it is rarely on at all during the morning or afternoon. But with a house of four teenagers, and a movie buff hubby, we pretty much have all the cable channels possible. One channel in particular, has Dora on demand. Now I don't agree with toddlers watching a lot of tv. I think under an hour daily is more than enough. However, I can't believe the amount of language Ava is acquiring from watching Dora. She knows the names of all the characters (Backpack is "backcack") and most of the songs ("Do Do Do Do Dora" ). She cannot get enough of Dora. She asks and asks all day long every day to watch it. Before each episode, there is a short announcement in which one hears "this program is suitable for all ages". When I switched the tv on to Dora this morning, Ava turned to me and said "suitable for all ages!" After I picked my jaw up off the floor I thought that maybe she is watching it a bit too much :-)

AVA HAS GRADUATED!

The day has come. Ava graduated from auditory verbal therapy today! Really, she is finished with therapy. See her beaming therapist Mila de Melo in the photo, proudly holding Ava's Certificate of Completion. What this means is Ava has achieved the ultimate goal of auditory verbal therapy, which is to catch up fully to a hearing child of Ava's age in expressive language (speaking) and receptive language (understanding speech). In fact, Ava has surpassed those goals. Ava's expressive language is in the 88th percentile. Her receptive language is in the 97th percentile. Overall her language is in the 91st percentile. What does this mean? Today Ava is 2 years, 5 months old; she's almost 2 1/2. Yet, Ava speaks like a hearing child that is 2 years 11 months old. She understands language like the average 3 1/2 year old hearing child does. Overall, her language is that of a 3 year 1 month old hearing child. And what is even more astounding is Ava has only heard sound for 1 year and 7 months - she didn't begin to hear until her cochlear implants were activated when she was nearly 10 months old. It is an understatement to say how proud I am of her! I am so happy and grateful for our blessings. All our hard work has paid off and the reward is so huge. There are so many people I have mentioned in past posts who were instrumental in guiding us in Ava's journey. However for this post, I dedicate to Ava's loving auditory-verbal therapist ("Auntie") Mila de Melo. Mila, you gave us the tools to help Ava learn to listen and talk and she does this beautifully. We are blown away and Ava's achievements are beyond what we ever expected and hoped for. Thank you Mila, from the bottom of my heart. We will never forget you.

Where do we go from here?

The wonderful thing about Ava's graduation is now we can just let her grow and develop as any hearing child would. She will continue to learn and acquire language naturally. Our school board provides the services of a Teacher of the Deaf to monitor Ava during the preschool years. The teacher will prepare an Individual Education Plan for Ava once she starts preschool, to make sure Ava will have all the supports she needs to be successful in school. I will, of course, continue with this blog, to document Ava's development from a toddler to school age child and so forth, along with the challenges yet to come. My attitude? Bring it on! We are as ready as ever.

Mommy, Daddy and our angel, Ava Rose

Loving Music!

I read somewhere that CI recipients may have some trouble appreciating music. Clearly with Ava this is not the case. She loves music and she loves dancing. Here are two short videos. In the first video, Ava is about 21 months old and has been hearing for just under a year. The second video was taken at her older sister's class Hallowe'en dance this year. She is almost 2 1/2 and hearing for 1 1/2 years. The video is really dark but about 10 or so seconds into the video you will see her older sister (in witch costume) enter the gym and hug a little dark figure in a giraffe costume (Ava) dancing up and down.

Fun With Nursery Rhymes!

We are working on new nursery rhymes with Ava. Since mastering the finger plays "itsy-bitsy spider" and "round and round the garden" a while back, we wanted to introduce new ones to her. Ava's therapist showed me some really cool little booklets she had made with the nursery rhymes so I came home and made my own version. I found the pictures on the internet; some were already with colour and some I had to colour myself. I bought some foam sheets :

and yarn, armed myelf with scissors and a glue stick and made 5 little booklets (Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, Jack and Jill, Hickory Dickory Dock and Hey Diddle Diddle). Here is an example of Humpty, Dumpty:

I used yarn to hold the pages together like a booklet. Then it will be easier to take the booklet apart for another game once Ava masters the rhyme - which will be to put the pictures in the correct sequential order.

I also printed off the complete nursery rhyme on one page:

Another idea is to put the pictures on popsicle sticks - as we have for "One Two Buckle My Shoe":

I will try to capture Ava's progress with these nursery rhymes on video.

Have fun!